The Letter “P”
When I was a young’un, us kids were forced to accompany our parents on visits to our granparents’farm. Usually, we just went for the weekend. They lived about two hours away via a horrible New Brunswick highway. My mother spent most of the trip saying “Be careful Bob!” and waxing poetic about the dangers of “transport trailers.” The grandparents’farm house had a myriad of rooms to explore and was decorated with a mix of folksy hooked rugs and needlecraft, and Victorian kitsch.
Unfortunately, once you explored the bedrooms and the parlor…again…and poked around the spooky barn/garage for an hour or so, you were left with either sitting around hoping that your cousins would show up (they didn’t), or reading books from the “library.” Our grandparents’library consisted of Reader’s Digest anthologies of some nature (boring), several old copies of National Geographic (reread many times), some Harlequin Romances (we were too young to appreciate) and the “P” volume of a bad encyclopedia.
Remember that episode of Friends, when Joey was coerced by a door-to-door salesman, to buy the “V” volume of a set of encyclopedia? No? Well, it was a classic (The One With The Cuffs…Season 4). Anyhoo. I saw the episode a week or so ago and for some reason it reminded me of that old “P” volume. I must have read that book a dozen times but all I remember is the section on Pompeii. I had practically memorized the story of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius by the time I was 9. And you know what? The story still fascinates me. The photos of the casts of children and the chained dog, buried in ash, still haunt my dreams.
Later, as I got older, I think I did eventually delve into Grandma’s trashy books – some classics like When Debbie Dared and When Sarah Smiled, and best of all, Max Smart and the Perilous Pellets. Good times.
Looking back, I wonder why the hell didn’t our mother bring games and books along on those trips? What was she thinking? I guess we just didn’t have money for books and we didn’t get out to the library very often as we only had one car. My kids are SO spoiled! They have never suffered for want of a book or a game or a craft.
As an aside, my Grandpa taught himself to read when he was in his 70′s. He had been a potato farmer and had spent his winters in the bush, logging. Once the kids were gone (all 12) and he was retired, he played fiddle, annoyed my Grandma, drank and learned to read. Old dog/new tricks.
